Ajinomoto Foods North America Brings Oracle JD Edwards into Its Modern Security Framework with Datawiza

Overview

Ajinomoto Foods North America (AFNA) is a leading manufacturer in the frozen food industry, producing household brands such as José Olé, Ling Ling, and Tai Pei alongside a broad foodservice portfolio. Part of the global Ajinomoto Group, the company operates nine factories across the United States with more than 2,800 employees, serving grocery, warehouse club, foodservice, and custom manufacturing channels.

Behind AFNA's manufacturing and distribution operations sits Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, the ERP system that more than 500 employees rely on every day for core business processes. Keeping a system this central both secure and easy to access is essential — which is why AFNA set out to bring JDE under the same modern identity standards as the rest of its enterprise applications.

“JDE was one of our last major applications without centralized authentication, and there's no out-of-the-box way to fix that. We evaluated multiple solutions and wanted something straightforward, cost-effective, and reliable that integrated seamlessly with Microsoft Entra ID. Datawiza met and exceeded every one of those requirements.”

— Mark Gallrein, Sr. Director, IT Innovation & Business Services, Ajinomoto Foods North America

Challenge: The Last Major Application Outside the Security Framework

AFNA had standardized on Microsoft Entra ID for single sign-on and multi-factor authentication across its enterprise applications. But JD Edwards was a holdout. “JDE was one of our last major enterprise applications without centralized authentication, and it does not provide an out-of-the-box solution for this,” said Mark Gallrein, Sr. Director of IT Innovation & Business Services at Ajinomoto Foods North America.

That gap carried real consequences. JDE users maintained a separate password and login process, adding friction to daily work and creating credential-related risk on one of the company's most critical systems. It also left JDE outside the cybersecurity standards AFNA applied everywhere else.

The traditional answers were unattractive. Custom ERP development to integrate identity is lengthy, difficult, and risky on a production system that manufacturing operations depend on. AFNA wanted enterprise-grade authentication for JDE without a customization project — and without standing up significant new infrastructure to get it.

Solution: No-Code SSO and MFA, Live in Under Two Weeks

AFNA selected the Datawiza Access Proxy, a no-code solution that adds Microsoft Entra ID SSO and MFA to JD Edwards without modifying application code. Deployed in AFNA's own Azure environment, the proxy authenticates users against Entra ID — enforcing the company's MFA and Conditional Access policies — and then signs them into JDE seamlessly.

The implementation was completed in a handful of working sessions. “Straightforward, and it was completed in under two weeks,” Gallrein said. Because no JDE code was modified, AFNA avoided the risk and maintenance burden of custom ERP integration. Datawiza supported configuration, testing, and go-live, including standby support during a major ERP upgrade cutover.

Results: Transparent to Users, Silent for the Help Desk

For end users, the change was almost invisible — in the best way. “The biggest user benefit was eliminating another password and login process. The transition was virtually transparent to our users,” Gallrein noted.

For the security team, JDE now sits inside AFNA's standard security framework, with access governed through Microsoft Entra ID SSO and MFA. Credential-related risk is reduced, and alignment with the company's cybersecurity standards has improved. For IT, the entire outcome was achieved without a lengthy or difficult ERP customization project or significant additional infrastructure.

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